Only once, a body, clutching at a board, even in death, crossed us.

And when we reached out and hauled it to, it was one of the sailors, not drowned, but with his skull broken.
Presently, as I said, the waves grew less, and drifted us we knew not whither, save that it was far from where we had gone down, with no land or sun in view, nothing but a howling waste of waves, and we two at its mercy.
Ludar and I looked at one another grimly.

It was no time for talking or wondering what next.

For nearly two days we had not tasted food or moistened our lips; and here we were, perhaps a week or a month from land, in a bare boat on a hungry sea.

Might we not as well have gone down with the _Misericorde_?
The daylight went, and presently it was too dark even to see my comrade across the little boat.